She never told me exactly how she had found my old address at that point when I made a serious issue of being secretive and reclusive. Corporate espionage was a real thing. You worked hard in your job, developed a new product and then bam someone else would steal the credit for the project and you were dropped. It was more likely the fact that I wasn’t a professional in erasing my traces and activities and simply that she was.

I recalled the explosion in the warehouse and the months of recovery time. Touching my chest I could feel the cool metal necklace that never left my body, at first the paramedics had been concerned that the heat from the blast had fused the metal to my skin and had attempted to remove it. Apparently, despite my injuries, I had woken out of consciousness and told them to leave it alone as it was a precious family heirloom. I had begged for it to be left alone but they could sterilise the surface of it to avoid any contamination of my body at the time.

The strange thing was that the first that I had heard of this was a month later when I was recovering, and a doctor joked about it with me when he had checked my medical status. He told me that it must have been my lucky charm that helped boost my immune system and recovery time, to be fair they hadn’t expected much after I had been blasted out of the door of an exploding warehouse. My clothes had been entirely burnt but my body wasn’t as hurt as it ought to be considering the circumstances.

The main reason that I had to stay in hospital for a month was due to some unknown effect from the explosion and fire my body refused to respond to normal stimuli, I fell into a deep coma despite my initial outburst when paramedics attempted to remove my necklace. After four weeks, my body and mind felt refreshed, and I was able to be discharged. This was around the time that I finally met Mariko in person.

The first time that we met up was in a roadside diner. She had insisted that we meet in a public place for her safety and how I was a noted individual for having a bad temper and anger management issues. Never mind that all of that was after I was robbed of my life’s work.

I had been standing outside of the city hospital, cars driving past and people chatting as they went in and out of the entrance. All I had with me was the necklace, a backpack filled with a few belongings that had survived the warehouse explosion and donated clothes from the hospital charity section. The clothes looked older but strong enough to last me for a while. I knew that I had some cash leftover in my bank account despite the cost of my medical fees and insurance coverage, but it wouldn’t be enough to last me for more than a few months at most. Given that I had chosen to leave the place where I worked more than two years ago it wasn’t surprising that any of my old colleagues came to visit me in hospital. Friends were something else that I had in short supply as well. If you wanted to keep friendships then you needed to maintain that connection, otherwise, things would drift apart.

My work had been my driving force for two years of my life and my plan to make my technology known to the public sector was gone for now. The necklace around my neck changed shape somewhat when I was recuperating, it now looked more organic and less mechanical than previously. Even the colour was far closer to that of my skin. If someone looked at me even at a close distance it would be quite difficult to tell that I was even wearing it. I thought that it might be a side-effect of the heat from the flames, but the doctor had told me that I was fully recovered and in good health.

It was then that I felt a person bump into me, and a hand reached into my pocket. The necklace around my neck felt slightly warm against my skin and unconsciously my hand grabbed out immediately holding on to the arm of a young girl in her late teens. My grip was firm, and I had reacted directly on instinct. I felt my face crease into a deep frown. Seeing my strong physical reaction to her attempt at thievery the older teen began shouting out right there at the hospital entrance.

‘Heeey! This guy is grabbing me!’ Her thin voice made several passers-by and security staff turn and look at me. A few pedestrians stopped to watch the street-level drama as though to see what would happen next. My face flushed red with embarrassment.

‘Uh, no. This really isn’t what it looks like.’ I tried to speak my part but too much time alone without enough social conversation caused me to tend to mumble.

‘Heeelllp!’ The teen girl kept screaming at me as I held onto her arm. This situation wasn’t looking so good. In the first place, it had been me who had been attempted to be pickpocketed. I wasn’t in the habit of grabbing onto strangers’ arms for fun.

‘Excuse me. Sir? You need to let go of that young lady. Right now. Can you do that for me?’

The girl continued to shout and hit my chest with her other arm. One or two people had stopped to stare.

A security guard although not armed with a weapon approached me with open hands from the hospital entrance. Turning my head I saw a female guard talking into her radio while she was making gestures in my direction. A few more people in the streets had stopped to watch the action now. My face flushed even redder and hot with sheer embarrassment and awkwardness now. If this incident grew and my face was stuck on a tv channel as a news segment, then my location and identity would be easily found out. As far as I knew although no one had come asking me, blowing up a warehouse and stealing the entire contents of technology wasn’t commonplace.

Letting go of the late teen’s arm I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet to show exactly what had happened with the confusing situation and how I wasn’t some freak who liked grabbing people in public outside of busy hospitals. I raised my voice intending to be clear and precise to settle this whole mess.

‘Hello!’ I held my wallet over my head with one hand. ‘This whole thing has just been one massive understandi-‘

‘Bye!’

The girl in her late teens, or she might have been older seeing as how her voice had just changed to become harder and more mature had just grabbed the wallet out of my hand and sprinted off down the street. Her reaction speed had been far faster than I originally imagine, watching her push off walls as she managed to navigate past obstacles only made me think one thing. I had just been robbed by a professional thief. For a single wallet from a guy wearing worn-out clothes donated from a hospital charity foundation. I was an idiot.

Once the crowd saw the girl dash off and the drama had come to an end people lost interest and began to carry on again with their way. The security guard who had been walking toward me switched their hands from being open to more casual and shook their head as he approached. He scuffed his feet on the ground, looked down the street at the now disappeared teenager and scuffing his feet again turned to talk to me with hands held behind his back.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

‘Another life in the big city, am I right?’

I nodded my head in agreement. In a small state of shock that this had all happened so quickly I felt inclined to agree. I quickly put my hands into my pockets and checked my backpack to make sure I had anything else that had been missing. I had a passport to verify my identity but aside from a few other minor belongings not much else of value.

‘She...she tried to pickpocket me.’ I said to the hospital security guard.

The man looked at me with a mild sympathetic sort of look on his face. Patting a hand on my shoulder to reassure me he then waved a hand at his female colleague who was standing next to the entrance and was now looking in a state of shock. I thought to myself that the expression on her face was how I ought to be looking right now.

‘It happens.’ He shrugged his shoulders like he had seen an older teenager perform street acrobatics and run at an incredible speed a thousand times before and it was nothing new. I half-expected him to start laughing but he turned around and walked back to talk to his female colleague trying to explain the situation. I watched both of them gesturing before they walked back into the entrance of the hospital and left me standing by myself on the street outside.

Foot traffic resumed and the busy noises of the city, with cars and motorbikes pumping out pollution and dust driving past. I looked again in the direction that the young teenager had sprinted off to but there was no sign of her as she had skilfully avoided knocking down either people or food signs. Great, just great. At least I didn’t have to worry about this being a media coverage situation. Having my passport would give me access to my bank to withdraw stone, hard cash but I’d need to walk to my nearest branch first. I turned around to head to the help desk in the hospital and ask for both directions and a city map that would help me locate my bank, but a hand tapped on my shoulder.

I felt my necklace warm up again as my reaction speed was near-instantaneous again. My body reacting without my conscious thought. Given that I wasn’t actually training or physically strong enough to withstand my body snapping around it put a strain on my body. Similar to how if a normal person would try to drive a racing car or fly an aeroplane as massively high speeds. The body simply couldn’t cope with it. I was sure that I had pulled several muscles in my chest at this rate.

I felt my hand grab hold of a roughish material long before my eyes were able to focus on the target who had tapped my shoulder. No teenager this time but an older guy wearing a worn out army jacket.

For the location, I told her a place that I knew wasn’t too far away from my location but close enough to several other towns that it might confuse anyone following me depending on which road I took to drive back. She just told me that she’d meet me at midday, and I’d recognise her straight away, I asked her if she was going to be wearing anything that I’d recognise, and she just laughed down the phone at me.

I remember the first words that came out of her mouth after I was sitting down drinking a strawberry milkshake. The server in the diner had come around to ask if I had wanted to order any coffee and pie but I responded that I’d prefer something sweet to drink.

Choosing to grab a seat near the door but facing the wall I became weary of the whole situation. I doubt that I would be tailed by anyone, but you never knew what would happen when you owned a technology that was wanted and desired by a large number of groups.

The door in the diner squeaked open and I saw this huge guy walk in. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. The guy looked like he could easily pick me up and squash me if he wanted to, but to my surprise, he just took a seat and made an order totally ignoring me. If my paranoia was playing up again then it’d be a good idea if I went out a little bit more.

‘You look like the silent but dangerous type. I’m warning you that any violent action will be met by immediate retaliation. Are we clear?’

I just stared at her. She walked into the diner dressed in some sort of uniform, it was dark grey and smart looking, but I had no clue if it was meant to be military or what. I didn’t see her carrying any weapons with her but then again how was I meant to have a clue about what, it’s not like I even owned a gun. The uniform didn’t look like it was geared for combat, but it did have pockets, I was unable to see any company logo or country flags either.

She noticed me straight away and possessed an aura of badass. The kind of woman, no person that you just didn’t want to risk annoying.

‘…Ok, I don’t like you staring at me.’

I shook my head not realising that time had passed and she had noticed. People skills were not my forte. Too much time by myself in the hospital recovering and then finding out that nothing had been done about my stolen technology had changed me as a person.

‘I apologise, your uniform looks interesting.’

‘….Excuse me?’

‘I mean it looks military, but I don’t know if it is or not. Good, it looks really good on you!’

‘Wow, you’re something aren’t you. Staring and all the comments going on, I’d say that you don’t have many friends do you.’

‘No.’

‘Perhaps, you’re just the strong, silent type instead.’

‘No.’

‘What a conversationalist you are. Got a girlfriend?’

‘No.’

‘Boyfriend?’

‘No.’

‘No friends, no relationships, just work. The secret to your success. Work and dedication without fail. You should try and meet someone though; it’ll change your life for the better.’

‘…Did you send me a box of chocolates a phone and a threat to bring me to this diner to insult me?’

‘It sure wasn’t because I like you. I’m not going to be answering your questions. You can call me Riko.’

‘Reeko?’

‘Riko, short for Mariko. Japanese. Can you tell by looking at me?’

‘Do I get the last name with that?’

‘Zero.’

Yeah, the badass lady was full of it. This felt like a set up for making me the butt of a joke and then her fiance walks in and they have a good laugh about it.

The best response that I could give was just stare. Nobody else in the diner cared much for our conversation, I saw that the massive muscular guy was now eating his third piece of apple pie. He might even start a fight but I doubted it, he just looked happy eating.